Flowering Shrubs and Fate
by Izaranna
Summary: Lee has a flowering shrub that made Tenten cry and Neji refuses to contemplate the sanity of talking to a plant. A Team Gai the month after formation one-shot.


As a shinobi, Neji had come across many a strange situation, but this one was the strangest.

Tenten, the only one of his teammates he could stand, was bawling in the middle of the training field and Lee was glaring at her angrily. Keep in mind that this is _Lee_ , so the strangeness of the situation was exacerbated. Gai-sensei had yet to show up, which was weird in its own way as he was _never_ late (something about some rival of his and unmentionable unyouthful habits, but Neji had stopped listening by that point.)

Neji felt the strong urge to just turn back and pretend he never saw anything but that was very unlikely to happen, especially because he hadn't been quite as stealthy as a shinobi was supposed to be. It wasn't his fault really, he didn't know when he woke up this morning that he would be the last sensible person on his team and that it would've been better to just sleep in.

Lee had seen him now and Neji cursed his fate, before accepting it graciously. By trying to escape anyway.

"Neji-san! Come and be One with Us!" yelled Lee with a fiercely determined look on his face.

Neji felt like crying. He had known Lee for about three months now, having never much interacted with him at the academy, and he knew that the green spandex clad boy had absolutely no idea how _wrong_ everything he said sounded. He didn't know whether it was because his mind was perverted or whether Lee was just acting like that to rile them up. Whatever it was though, he still felt like bashing his skull against a tree so that the pain of being in his Youthful Presence would diminish.

Tenten had seen him as well and, if it was possible, had started crying even harder, snot and tears sullying her face in equal proportion. Neji inwardly grimaced at the normally aesthetically pleasing face, wondering what it was Lee had done for the sensible and down-to-earth girl to have a nervous breakdown.

"Neji-kun…" Tenten whimpered miserably. "I'm so sorry."

Before he could ask her what for, Lee was standing right in front of him, blinking eagerly with his disconcertingly large eyes. When Neji had first seen Lee, with his shiny black hair, awful haircut, terrible fashion choice, bushy eyebrows and abnormal eyes, he had felt so much _pity_ for the boy, and he always felt that no matter how bad a hand fate had given him, Lee's was infinitely worse. This was the only reason he tolerated his teammate, but only Tenten seemed to understand.

The other two retards on his team seemed to think Lee had managed to 'worm his way into Neji's heart'.

The most worrying thing was that they were the type that ignored something to the point of not even believing it existed (Lee had yet to believe that women had any effect on his hormones) and Neji was frightened at their logic defying ability of declaring something till it became true. (Gai-sensei had declared that Tenten would be better with fuinjutsu than with taijutsu even though she'd never touched on the topic and had no intentions of doing so, but now she was well on her way to the level 4 material and was making her own personalised sealing scrolls.)

"What do you want Lee-san?" Neji said tonelessly.

"My Youthful Rival! I have seen a Most Delightful Innovation today and I would like us to test it out! Tenten already has and she seems Most Moved by it!" Then, his smile dimmed in its potency and he said morosely, "It does not work for me because of my damaged chakra coils." But then regaining his fervour he _smiled_ with the energy of a thousand suns. "But I do not mind for I am Youthful Enough to overcome this travesty and support you in Your Endeavour!"

Neji, despite knowing that whatever it was Tenten was crying about it certainly wasn't happy, felt himself intrigued.

"What innovation?" asked Neji.

"Come Neji!"

So Neji moved closer and looked at what it was that had Lee so excited and Tenten so miserable. Cocooned in warm blankets (bright green so they were definitely Lee's) was a little—

Flowering shrub.

"What is this?" Neji asked exasperatedly, turning to Lee with waves of irritation oozing out of him.

"The Plant speaks Neji-san! But only those with the ability to Cast Genjutsu can hear what it says. It tells you, as I Understand It, your Worst Fear!" beamed Lee.

Neji glanced at Tenten's sad huddled form, shoulders shaking from the hiccups her tears had subsided to. It made sense he supposed, but the ludicrousness of the situation had to be taken into account.

"A flowering shrub can speak?" he sneered. "Where in Kami-sama's name did you hear _that_ foolishness?"

He was stalling, trying to weigh the merits of actually finding out his worst fear, for he didn't quite know what it would be and whether it would cause him to act like Tenten. Of course, he was stronger than her both emotionally and physically, but Tenten was the most well-adjusted of the three of them and if her fear was that bad that it made her cry then Neji wasn't sure he wanted to.

On the other hand, if he chickened out Lee would never let him live it down and would hound him till the end of his days, more than he did _anyway_. Decisions, decisions…

Of course, there was no question of whether the plant was authentic or not. Not only had Tenten not refuted Lee's absurd claim, but there was potent chakra emanating from the innocent looking plant.

"It is from a sadly Secret but Very Reliable Source!" replied Lee.

Tenten had finally pulled herself together and was wiping her tear-covered face with mild embarrassment. "You remember the greenhouse we were working on yesterday? Apparently the old guy was so impressed with Lee-san that he gave him the plant as a thank you for everything."

Team 9 had had a C-rank mission yesterday dealing with mildly dangerous plants in an old nutjobs' greenhouse. The only reason it was a C-rank was because it was outside Konoha proper. The old man had loved his plants until some of his more _adventurous_ experiments had actually started to make him fear them. Neji supposed it made sense that Lee, who had shown him what it truly meant to stand up to his fears, would be given a plant that told someone their worst fear.

Coming to a decision he _knew_ he would end up regretting, he decided to disregard any misgivings he felt (Lee would _really_ never let him live it down, and unlike other normal people, he would burst into tears and look at him with comical pity every time he remembered it) and nodded stoically, as if he wasn't interested whatsoever.

Lee beamed brightly and whooped, rushing to get the shrub and energetically shove it into Neji's face. Tenten had recovered sufficiently to be able to giggle at Neji the Flowering Shrub; Lee had been a bit too enthusiastic and thrust the pot with enough vigour that a couple of flowers and branches had tangled into his pretty hair. Neji was not amused and silently glared the life out of Lee, but the taijutsu-only cripple was immune to hatred of the 'Fate _Will_ Break Your Pelvis' variety.

Brushing the pink flowers out of his hair, Neji activated his byakugan and saw the odd pattern the plant's chakra was emitting.

"You have to cast a genjutsu on it." Tenten said helpfully.

With a nod of acknowledgement that he only ever gave his female teammate, he cast a low level genjutsu on the unsuspecting plant and the odd pattern immediately started fluctuating erratically. He nearly dropped the pot but held on firmly; he was a shinobi after all, and he had more mental fortitude than most.

His surroundings faded and a voice started yelling in his ear.

"I won't let you have him! Let my son go!" cried a female high-pitched voice. Then, as her voice faded, another lower and extremely familiar voice calmly said, "Maybe it would have been better if I didn't have a son in my life."

Neji remembered that, remembered why his father had said, under what circumstances it was said and how profound it had sounded then. But taken out of context, it stabbed him, made him question the validity of his existence and his purpose in life.

He'd said it to Hiashi-sama when the Clan Head had questioned whether he would give up his life, freedom and soul for the sake of breaking an age-old tradition. After calmly stating that line, he had said that what ifs were meaningless because he did and he'd rather die than subjugate _his_ son to the life of a glorified slave to his own family.

The first voice was presumably his mother. She'd gone insane before dying a few weeks after his birth, hating the life she'd brought him into and the fate he had in store for him.

Another voice came out of the dark silence and he could see his father's stern gaze and his cold eyes in his minds' eye.

"You're defective!"

"It's hard to believe you could ever be _better_ than this."

"Give up Neji. You can't escape the cage no matter how hard you try or how hard you work."

And then his father whispered viciously, "You're forgetting me Neji. Did you think I wouldn't notice?"

And he screamed, dropping the plant and not caring that he looked like a fool because his father was the person he loved the most in the world and it was true; every day it got just that little bit harder to remember his voice, what he looked like, what he would have said…

Tenten asked him what was wrong and Lee looked pale and sombre.

After pulling himself together and waving off their worries, Gai-sensei finally showed up and apologised loudly and dramatically about how his 'Hip and Cool Rival had Challenged Him and he Could Not Refuse!' because obviously that would have been far too Unyouthful.

"What is Wrong Neji-kun?" he asked in loud concern.

"Nothing Sensei." He replied nonchalantly, having regained a semblance of his equilibrium.

They continued their training exercise, and then went home.

Tenten and Lee never told anyone about the day they saw their unflappable teammate scream like a wounded hound, or the look of sheer terror and madness in his eyes, or the way he leaned into Tenten's hug and the way he didn't brush off Lee's comforting hand on his shoulder.

Team 9, later Team Gai, had issues by the dozen. But it would do well to remember that they were one of the only teams in Konoha that stayed together even after they all got promoted. Defective or not, they were fighters, all three of them, and dreamers.

And Neji? He never told anyone what happened till the day he died and his teammates never asked him. But when the blond idiot with a far too large mouth told him that, even though his fear-induced-father had told him that he could never have the freedom he craved, that he was still fighting for it, he broke.

In the best way possible.

* * *

 _Read and review please!_


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